Empire total war demo thread

[ray245]

Seems like we might be able to play a battle on a one to one scale and fry a multi-core computer.
Spoiler

I'm a fucking retard who doesn't get how the spoiler function works. Thank you, GR for editting this because I didn't use a preview button!

1400 men in a single unit?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I bet that banner ad at the bottom of the page knows a few bytes too.

And.... Blocked by AdBlock....

By the way, the next generation of viruses promise to invade via webpage. Good luck leaving yourself exposed.

[Vympel]

Is this ever gonna be available somewhere apart from Steam?

I wanna get it off Telstra Gamearena and save bandwith.

[Thanas]

1. You don't have to put any personal information if you don't want to, you can use everything throwaway.
2. You can make an account with fake information for each game, if your deranged mind wishes so, and never buy online, retail only.
2. If you want to buy anything online, you can use Paypal, and keep all your real information there.
3. The hardware survey is opt in, there's no reason to participate if you don't want to, and there's nothing secret about it, Valve made it's existence publicly known, the whole deal about Steam it's that it's as transparent as possible for the user, it's been probed countless times, and there's no foul play known to it.
4. "TEHY STEEL MY GAIMING HABBITSES!" it's hilarious. You have 2382 posts, your last post was made on Sat Feb 21, 2009 9:07 pm, and you joined on Sat Jun 26, 2004, 6:49 pm. I hope you're ready to leave now. Also, stop using email and any IM service, people can track back your location from there, the time when you sent the message, and usually when you were last online, and it's harder to keep that from happening than setting your profile to private on Steam is.

And my whole point of that information sharing being voluntary went just over your head, didn't it, Rube?

[InnocentBystander]

Unless you're somehow embarrassed by the information I can't imagine why you'd take offense to having it collected (not like anyone will even look at it anyway). Then again I've never understood the whole privacy for its own sake thing, so the whole argument sounds like tinfoil hat nonsense to me. Maybe you live in china where people do care about that sort of stuff? If you don't like steam because you can't run it on multiple computers at once I suppose that would make sense, but well… that is the point of DRM, and doesn't appear to be your concern anyway.

Personally, I prefer buying games over steam. Lower overhead means that more of my money can go to the developer, rather than the distributor.

But hey, back to the game...
I'm not feeling the ship combat, chained shots and grapeshot, while available, don’t seem very effective. The ship capture mechanic looks cool, but unless there is lots of small fleet combat (very possible) I can't see there being a whole lot to naval combat other than bringing more guns to the fight. Hopefully the demo battle isn’t a wholly accurate representation of naval combat.

Ground combat on the other hand is totally different from what it used to be. The river crossing makes it especially difficult to maneuver cavalry and dragoons but I appreciate the new style. I'd really like to see how sieges work; garrisoning houses has got to make it a totally different game.

[Thanas]

Unless you're somehow embarrassed by the information I can't imagine why you'd take offense to having it collected (not like anyone will even look at it anyway). Then again I've never understood the whole privacy for its own sake thing, so the whole argument sounds like tinfoil hat nonsense to me. Maybe you live in china where people do care about that sort of stuff?

You are an idiot. Just a few weeks ago huge data security scandals became known - aka companies selling collected info to third parties for profit, who then used that info to bother people with ads and subscriptions and all that nonsense - so it is not like this is tinfoil hat nonsense and that nobody will look at it anyway. That argument is so lacking in intelligence that I wonder how old you are.

But hey, why bother with a legitimate argument on your part when you can just spout off?

Also, please formulate an argument *why* I should be forced to share information at all. So far, you have done squat to convince me. In case you do not know, you are the one who is supposed to make an argument why collecting information is actually in my best interest.

[Shogoki]

You are an idiot. Just a few weeks ago huge data security scandals became known - aka companies selling collected info to third parties for profit, who then used that info to bother people with ads and subscriptions and all that nonsense - so it is not like this is tinfoil hat nonsense and that nobody will look at it anyway.

Careful then, Mike may will one day get tired of the forums and decide to sell a bunch of email addresses attached to an IP log and geographic location for MILLIONS!!! And since you're incapable of not providing real info, yours is going to be extra juicy. Next time you receive spam for your local doughnut shop, you know who to blame.

That argument is so lacking in intelligence that I wonder how old you are.

Funny, this makes me wonder the same about you. Or maybe you're just a tool.

Also, please formulate an argument *why* I should be forced to share information at all. So far, you have done squat to convince me. In case you do not know, you are the one who is supposed to make an argument why collecting information is actually in my best interest.

Because a Steam account is tied to potentially hundreds to thousands of dollars worth of game licenses, and you might want to be able to provide a way to identify it as yours in the event that it is misplaced. And if you don't want that there's no need to provide any info that can identify you more than this forum, your IM account, your email address, or a proxy server (which i doubt you use or even know what it is) already do. And the extra stuff, like the hardware survey, is opt in, and the results publicly available, you idiot.

[Shogoki]

Is this ever gonna be available somewhere apart from Steam?

It's not, it was developed using Steamworks for DRM, stat tracking and achievements. It's pretty much guaranteed that it's going to be available for like 50% off in a few months, though.

[Thanas]

You are an idiot. Just a few weeks ago huge data security scandals became known - aka companies selling collected info to third parties for profit, who then used that info to bother people with ads and subscriptions and all that nonsense - so it is not like this is tinfoil hat nonsense and that nobody will look at it anyway.

Careful then, Mike may will one day get tired of the forums and decide to sell a bunch of email addresses attached to an IP log and geographic location for MILLIONS!!! And since you're incapable of not providing real info, yours is going to be extra juicy. Next time you receive spam for your local doughnut shop, you know who to blame.

You are a freaking idiot if you fail to see the difference between Mike and a company. You are also a freaking idiot if you fail to recognize the scale of the security issues.

Also, please formulate an argument *why* I should be forced to share information at all. So far, you have done squat to convince me. In case you do not know, you are the one who is supposed to make an argument why collecting information is actually in my best interest.

Because a Steam account is tied to potentially hundreds to thousands of dollars worth of game licenses, and you might want to be able to provide a way to identify it as yours in the event that it is misplaced. And if you don't want that there's no need to provide any info that can identify you more than this forum, your IM account, your email address, or a proxy server (which i doubt you use or even know what it is) already do. And the extra stuff, like the hardware survey, is opt in, and the results publicly available, you idiot.

Funny that you should mention that, especially since I neither provide my email, my IM account to the public on this board, nor do I post from the same IP everytime I visit this board. But continue assuming things about me.

Let me rephrase my argument, since clearly you are unable to remember or even read it.

a) Valve is a third company. It neither manufactures the game, nor will I buy it from them.
b) That said, why should I reveal any information to a third party which is not identical to the one I am buying the game from?

[Samuel]

Wow, it is like Thanas's sig actually matches what he thinks. Guys, can you have a conversation about the evils of companies that want to flood you in spam and use steam to do so elsewhere? I want to hear about Empire: Total War.

The picture you showed Ray is probably either the "elite units" they were offering for extra, or someone having fun- I doubt that will be in the actual game.

Also, I believe that Canadian law prevents Mike from selling of our information. That and the fact that he personally knows some of the members.

[Stark]

Actually, we could probably split both steam discussions into one thread; discussions about steam always go the same way (ie some people love slow DRM-packed nonsense because it's convienient and others resent being treated like a criminal) and the fact that you can do steam without being a wanker (as other digital distribution systems is never relevant. Pure tribalism.

[Commander 598]

The picture you showed Ray is probably either the "elite units" they were offering for extra, or someone having fun- I doubt that will be in the actual game.

It's a mod of the demo. You can alter a few lines in demo1.pack after opening it up in a text editor (Protip: It's a 520MB file) but it's really touchy and you have to alter more lines and remove as many characters as you put in because there's a character limit or something.

I read about it in the demo thread on twcenter.

[InnocentBystander]

Sorry if I derailed the thread. On the subject of the game

The regular combat is pretty fun, but I fear the demo sorta stacks the odds. Combat defiantly revolves around morale and maneuver. I'd really like to have a fight in a little more of an open area. Dragoons seem very useful, but in the demo map I never really had a chance to use them to flank the enemy. If nothing else, they were good at taking out half of the enemy's cannon emplacements within the first minute or two of combat.

Also, grapeshot is murderous.

I tried getting the demo but I ran into problem after problem with the Steam program. After an agonizing hour, I finally got the Steam program to work properly to just being the download. And then after slow downloading issues and additional Steam problems, I finally finished the download. I tried initiating the ETW demo only to have further issues: when the program launches, my computer freezes up. I finally just gave up on it. If this is the bullshit that Sega/CA is making me go through, I won't be bothered with it then. My taste for games has been slowly on the decline anyways as my real life responsibilities mount. I may get ETW when the price drops from the usual $50 USD to $30 USD and only if Steam is no longer involved.

What do you mean frozen? When I first launched the game it sat at the initial screen for a long time and I figured it had frozen. Eventually I found that if I just waited a couple minutes it would load and everything would be fine. Or as fine as a 3 minute load time can be.

[atg]

Is this ever gonna be available somewhere apart from Steam?

I wanna get it off Telstra Gamearena and save bandwith.

Steam SHOULD detect your connection and download from the Gamearena servers - which then doesn't count to your download usage. I'm with Internode personally and its always managed to select Internode's steam mirrors and therefore has never cost me bandwidth.

You can also set your download region in the client to "Australia(Telstra)" which should force the setting.

[Dominus Atheos]

How is this even relevant? He's not going to buy anything because everything except Audiosurf on Steam is shit, but he's concerned about playing his game being directly linked to privacy issues. People can rant all they want, but Steam is pretty serious DRM and if that's a concern a list of terrible games won't change his attitude.

What DRM do you mean by that?

[Stark]

I believe steam introduces an extra step of encrypting various files that are full 'steam games' (this doesn't affect 'steam activated' games like DoW2) whereby without steam parts of the software are useless. Many people are fine with this implementation which is up to them, but in any discussion of steam vs <random DRM> it's worth noting that steam also uses 'DRM' unless I'm using the word incorrectly.

[Dominus Atheos]

I believe steam introduces an extra step of encrypting various files that are full 'steam games' (this doesn't affect 'steam activated' games like DoW2) whereby without steam parts of the software are useless. Many people are fine with this implementation which is up to them, but in any discussion of steam vs <random DRM> it's worth noting that steam also uses 'DRM' unless I'm using the word incorrectly.

Well DRM stands for Digital Restrictions Management (depending on who you ask), so anything that tries to tell you what you're allowed to do with the game you legally purchased or control how you use it is DRM. You can still use the games offline, and it's really no different (probably better) then every other game that requires the cd to be in the tray in order to launch the game and the cd key in order to install it, and heaven help you if you lose either. But AFAIK Steam doesn't encrypt anything, but the programs you buy on it are changed to use the Steam framework which requires Steam to be installed, in much the same way PC games require Windows to be installed. If you refuse to buy games that have that kind of "DRM", pretty much your only option is a board game.

[Stark]

I'm just speaking from my experience cracking out that reliance in various games; it's a far more in-depth process than cracking any other DRM I've seen in games. It also amuses me that since it was released on steam Audiosurf now takes 2-3x as long to start while steam grinds away doing... something, so I mentally connected the two.

The ridiculous 'lose teh cdzzz oh noes' argument is obtuse in the extreme; online verification is the only system that works so it's good that more games use it, but I don't consider imaging a CD and downloading a 1mb file to be equivalent in irritation to dealing with steam (which is probably due to terrible AU latency, but whatever).

[Dominus Atheos]

The ridiculous 'lose teh cdzzz oh noes' argument is obtuse in the extreme; online verification is the only system that works so it's good that more games use it, but I don't consider imaging a CD and downloading a 1mb file to be equivalent in irritation to dealing with steam (which is probably due to terrible AU latency, but whatever).

Which is illegal. If you do that, you might as well go balls out and pirate the game. You'll be a criminal either way. Anyway, it's much more annoying to lose the cd key, since then you can't install the game ever again. That's the reason I never buy boxed copies of games anymore. I have both company of heroes and can't install either one since I lost the little 3/5 card the key was written on.

[Stark]

Wow, you must be worried about 'losing' emails too, since you apparently have no data security at all. It's terrifying to me that you never thought to store keys electronically - which is all a steam account does. The only keys I've ever lost are those I never bothered writing in a keyfile due to pure laziness. What's your excuse?

And no, I'll crack games actually. It's less annoying; just starting steam takes more than a minute. I can't be assed cracking smaller games like Audiosurf, but I only play HL1 for mods and thus it needs to be more portable than 'install steam lol'.

That you think cracking a game is equivalent to piracy really shows that you're a fucking retard. I paid for it... so... it's NOT LIKE PIRACY AT ALL, wherein the salient point is that THE OWNER DOESN'T GET PAID. It's possible to support steam use without being completely retarded like this.

[Fire Fly]

Fire Fly, what issues did you encounter while trying to download/run the game? I don't think I've ever experienced any issues with installation before.

For whatever reason, I keep getting the message that the library won't update, despite restarting my computer several times. Prior to getting steam to finally download, I had troubles where the program was running but the icon in the lower right hand corner was missing so whenever I tried to open up the program manually via the start menu list, it would always tell me that the program was already running and that no more than one can run at a time. It was irritating to say the least and I think the little interest I had in the ETW demo has now waned so I'm over it. I'll probably try again sometime in the future but for the moment, video games haven't been enticing me like they have in the past.

[atg]

That you think cracking a game is equivalent to piracy really shows that you're a fucking retard. I paid for it... so... it's NOT LIKE PIRACY AT ALL, wherein the salient point is that THE OWNER DOESN'T GET PAID. It's possible to support steam use without being completely retarded like this.

Unless I'm missing something big here, he didn't saying cracking a game was equivalent to piracy, just that both can be considered illegal actions. Which is true.

Incidently, Stark, I can't say that I've ever noticed Steam taking more than 4 or 5 seconds to start or to launch a game - are you sure its not just something with your PC or internet connection? (Please tell me your not with the bane of the interwebs, Telstra?)

[ray245]

Seems like the AI is much better in this game, such as being able to catch me off guard and flank me at times.

You may want to change the AI from medium to very hard. From what I can see, there is no bonus given to the AI in order to make the game challenging.

[PeZook]

What's the point of naval battles in the AGE OF SAIL if they're not at all influenced by wind?

Seriously. Somebody answer that, please.

[ray245]

What's the point of naval battles in the AGE OF SAIL if they're not at all influenced by wind?

Seriously. Somebody answer that, please.

Wind do affect the game.